Powerline networking?

Hi, apologies if this has been answered before - I have looked and couldn't find anything about it.

We're (Wandsworth - LSWAN) due to go FTTC in March. My master socket is under the stairs, together with two 13 amp power sockets. Is there any reason why the supplied modem under the stairs should not be connected to my router (in the study) via a pair of powerline plugs (I have a pair of Devolo dLAN Duos). This would seem to be a more elegant solution than having a cable wandering halfway round the house.

In reply to a post by herbgold:

Hi, apologies if this has been answered before - I have looked and couldn't find anything about it.

We're (Wandsworth - LSWAN) due to go FTTC in March. My master socket is under the stairs, together with two 13 amp power sockets. Is there any reason why the supplied modem under the stairs should not be connected to my router (in the study) via a pair of powerline plugs (I have a pair of Devolo dLAN Duos). This would seem to be a more elegant solution than having a cable wandering halfway round the house.

Due to IP addresses I'm not sure. I use the a set of Devolo's myself. The way I have it set up is that I have the modem and router plugged into the master socket and plug an Ethernet cable from my router into my Devolo device and have the other devolo device upstairs. Works a treat

Following on from lee111s, what speed rating are your Devolos, and what is your FTTC speed estimate? Recommended checker.

The Duo are the old blue 85Meg units, that is 85/2 and then remove overheads, so are not really man enough for FTTC.

The AV200 at a minimum, but with speed upgrades already due the AV 500 really should be looked at.

In reply to a post by herbgold:

Hi, apologies if this has been answered before - I have looked and couldn't find anything about it.

We're (Wandsworth - LSWAN) due to go FTTC in March. My master socket is under the stairs, together with two 13 amp power sockets. Is there any reason why the supplied modem under the stairs should not be connected to my router (in the study) via a pair of powerline plugs (I have a pair of Devolo dLAN Duos). This would seem to be a more elegant solution than having a cable wandering halfway round the house.

Notwithstanding the speed issue, my gut feeling is that this would not work and lee111s's solution would be the more conventional approach.

The Homeplugs don't usually appear as IP devices, i.e. they are just dumb bridges so should work between modem and router.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

The Homeplugs don't usually appear as IP devices, i.e. they are just dumb bridges so should work between modem and router.

That's interesting, because mine appear as IP devices.

Agreed, they should work fine to bridge this connection.

I have a set of D-Link AV200 units, they report a sync rate of 185Mbps to one another (one is on the upstairs ring, the other on the downstairs). I figure that provides plenty of overhead for an 80/20Mbps connection.

Previously I had a set of the Belkin gigabit powerline adapters, which rarely synced above 100Mbps before they died. Despite a lifetime warranty I abandoned them: life is too short!

You need to ignore the sync rate. I never really worked out the relationship between that and real throughput. For a start you probably only have a fast ethernet (100Mbps) connection in them. I think the 200 figure is the theoretical combined duplex speed.

In my experience with Devolo kit you'll be doing well to get much more than 40Mbps real throughput on 200Mbps spec.

In reply to a post by gmoorc:

In my experience with Devolo kit you'll be doing well to get much more than 40Mbps real throughput on 200Mbps spec.

My experience with the Devolo 200Mbps connecting to each other at approx 100Mbps gave a throughput of just under 30Mbps.

The variation will be down to issues like the amount of mains cable involved

I have a Network of Netgear XAVB5501s and the pair between my router and main PC upstairs, which report at 497mbps connection speed, actually only have a throughput of 75 - 90Mbps. Although that's more than enough for my purposes when I get FTTC.

My devolo 200's connect at ~170 either way and give a throughput of 37meg (on 38xxx profile on FTTC).

That's with the connected between first and third floor in my house.

Edited by deleted (Fri 20-Jan-12 19:37:23)

They are in adjacent rooms but given the odd wiring that has been discovered in this house, I would not be surprised if they are spurred off a circuit at the other end of the house.

my gut feeling is that this would not work

Seen this working, set up as suggested twice, no probs.

Not used that setup but did have a Powerline link from my FTTC router (downstairs) to main PC / Switch (upstairs). Speedtests showed a 10Mbs drop off and an addon of about 10ms latency. The Powerlines in question were the BT (Comtrend (Powerline NOT Homeplug)) ones.

This could be down to my wiring though (or the BT devices and its Powerline standard). In the end I fed some CAT5e round the house and that did the trick.

Thank you all very much for your very helpful responses (I've been away for a couple of days). To summarise your questions and some answers:

- Roberto - my FTTC speed estimate from the BT Infinity site is 36.1 Mbps (we're only about 30 metres from the cabinet), and according to the datasheet the Duos are only rated at 14.1, so definitely not fast enough - Mr Saffron suggests the dLAN 500s
- Mr Saffron's right, in my experience anyway - the dLan Duos are definitely dumb devices, the computer doesn't see them at all, is just aware of a LAN connection
- The consensus is that what I've suggested will work. Lee suggested putting the router next to the modem, and taking the powerline connection from there to the computer. What I didn't mention is that we have 3 other devices connected to my router currently: a NAS box holding all of our music; a SONOS box to distribute that music round the house; and an HP duplex printer. At a pinch I suppose the NAS and SONOS could live under the stairs next to the router, but not the printer, hence what I suggested.
- I've just been to the Devolo site -
http://www.devolo.com/consumer/dlan-mains-supply-net...
- and seen another possible solution - connect the modem and router direct as per Lee's suggestion, into a single dLAN 500 under the stairs, and in the study use a dLAN 500 AVTriple and a dLAN 500 AVPlus (or just 4 singles - I have plenty of power sockets) to get the 4 connections I need.

Hmm.
Thank you all again.

Edit - no, that last idea wouldn't work, I couldn't share the 4 devices via a single Ethernet connection into the router.

Edited by deleted (Sun 22-Jan-12 13:05:51)

In reply to a post by herbgold:

- and seen another possible solution - connect the modem and router direct as per Lee's suggestion, into a single dLAN 500 under the stairs, and in the study use a dLAN 500 AVTriple and a dLAN 500 AVPlus (or just 4 singles - I have plenty of power sockets) to get the 4 connections I need.

Hmm.
Thank you all again.

Edit - no, that last idea wouldn't work, I couldn't share the 4 devices via a single Ethernet connection into the router.

There is no need to have multiple Devolo units in your study. I had my modem and router in the lounge (plus a 10/100 switch for the slow stuff - voip ata, camera) one ethernet port on the router was connected to a Devolo 200Mbps AV in a nearby free socket. Its partner was in the the computer room connected to a Gigabit ethernet switch to feed the rest of the gear (computer(s), printer, Nas box, etc). Simples

Edited by TheHorseman (Sun 22-Jan-12 14:27:42)

Ah, yes, thank you - that would seem to be the perfect solution!

In reply to a post by herbgold:

We're (Wandsworth - LSWAN) due to go FTTC in March.

fwiw parts of Wandsworth can now get FTTC - though not yet my cab which is still showing 31 March but which I expect to be sooner.

Seems the exchange went live a few days ago.

I have 3 Solwise 500Mbps Homeplugs.

My PC has the most complicated run of the lot to the Homeplug at the router and thats connected at 240Mbps but it can drop to 190Mbps at times, the homeplug that is half as near again is connected at around 380Mbps.

Dont forget 200Mbit Homeplugs only have a 100Mbit Ethernet port on them so even if they connect faster it makes no difference. 500Mbit Homeplugs have a Gbit Ethernet connection.

EDIT:

Not sure it proves owt but this is the speeds i get http://www.speedtest.net/result/1727214264.png

Edited by Alnath (Tue 24-Jan-12 12:26:09)

Thanks!